June 28, 2006

Peter Daou signs off over at Salon, as he leaves to serve Hillary Clinton as "a blog advisor to facilitate and expand her relationship with the netroots." Take note, bloggers! That's a new job description, and you qualify! Blog Advisor, facilitating and expanding relationships with the netroots.

Is it too late to complain about the word "netroots"? It should be two words. I'm seeing troots too much. Or could we just shorten it to troots, which is cute? Cute troots.

Wait. Back to the subject. I keep meaning to quote some of Daou's statement, but it's boring me terribly for some reason. Does something happen to a blogger when he goes on the payroll of a politician? Don't you read bloggers because they're independent? Once they're bound to a specific candidate, what the hell are they?

They are Blog Advisor, facilitating and expanding relationships with the netroots. But we bloggers are prickly, feisty characters. You can't facilitate and expand with me.

Okay, focus:

The past few months have been a challenging period in the growth of the blogosphere, with the YearlyKos convention marking the “arrival” of the blogs as a political force (at least in the eyes of many mainstream reporters and political operatives). But YearlyKos has also touched off a series of harsh attacks against the netroots and specifically Daily Kos and its founder Markos Moulitsas. As blog influence continues to grow, we can expect more intense fire directed at the blogosphere by those who have a vested interest in undermining it.

One of the standard practices of blog detractors is to use the comments of the anonymous few to tarnish the genuine passion and sincerity of the many millions who log on to express their views and to connect with other denizens of the Internet. The “angry left” is a stereotype used to pigeonhole left-leaning bloggers, but the truth is that far from being a bastion of ideological rigidity, the blog world is a hard-hitting and free-wheeling discussion among Americans of all political stripes. These attacks won’t weaken the community; on the contrary, this nascent power base is only beginning to make its presence felt. It will reach fuller potential with the participation of Democratic leaders and responsible reporters.

That's turgid and in need of translation. I'm thinking it's a rephrasing of his pitch to the Clinton campaign about why they need him. Kos and his ilk are a threat, storming the gates, and they need someone who can deal with them, talk to them, tame them.

IN THE COMMENTS: They're playing with the "troots." Example: The troots? You can't handle the troots!

MORE: Amba makes a key point: "'Troots' would be a construction exactly analogous to 'blog' (ne-troots, we-blog)." I kept trying to think of other examples of forming a word like that, and the only thing I could think of was "shrooms."

I'm not particularly interested in anything Peter Daou (or anyone else) says as a paid tout for a candidate. I'll give them credit, though, at least they were open and above-board about it, unlike some in the last election, who waited until the campaign reports were coming out to admit they were paid to post.

The only bloggers whose payments weren't disclosed until the FEC filings in 2004, so far as I know, were two "independent" bloggers on the payroll of the John Thune (R) Senate campaign in South Dakota.

I would think that the perfect blog advisor for someone like Hillary would be someone like Ann - a Democrat who can, and routinely does, reach out to the middle and even, horror upon horror, to those of us on the right. It is those in the middle that will have to be woed to win the election, not those on the ranting fringes.

Of course, ajd. Lots of Republicans have only voted for Democrats in state elections. I think you're searching for the term moderate, or maybe independent. Otherwise, as Inigo Montoya would say, You keep using that word...

"someone who can deal with them, talk to them, tame them." And neuter them, channel (and perhaps dissipate) the energy, encourage them to blog the good but not the bad, essentially, as at least one commentor has noted, to turn bloggers into PR flacks. Drain the life-force, suck away the soul - it is the way of things bureaucratic, and the Democratic and Republican parties are nothing if not bureaucratic.

I do like the "Supreme Blog Poobah" thing, but it runs the risk of sound too dot-com'ish, when people had job titles like "Java Plug-in Evangelist" or "Facilities Maintenance Wizard." And wasn't Howard Dean supposed to have had the blog/netroots thing down tight, and that would make him unstoppable?

That's too positive and so needs my corruption. I'll be smearing that it's a rephrasing of his pitch to the Clinton campaign about why they need him. I will claim that Daou said that Kos and his ilk are a threat, storming the gates, and they need someone who can deal with them, talk to them, tame them.

There, I have fixed that for you.

BTW, are you familiar with any of Daou's work? Have you read his prior blogposts? (Not his summaries of other people's blogs, but his own blogposts.)

Since you are allowing OT in this thread, have you seen An Inconvenient Truth yet or the Road to Guantanamo?

I haven't read Daou's blog, no. It's too much of a pain to go into Salon, and I haven't followed any links that ever took me there. If the part I quoted is typical of his style, however, I would not be interested in reading it. It's turgid and dull. I already have to read too much prose I dislike in the form of court cases. I'm not looking for more. I don't enjoy it and I don't trust it.

And I really find it hard to believe that you can read that passage and not perceive what Daou is supposed to do for Hillary. It's damned obvious.

And I really find it hard to believe that you can read that passage and not perceive what Daou is supposed to do for Hillary. It's damned obvious.

You seem to think he is there to coopt the netroot bloggers for Hillary.

While I am certain he will be asked how to improve Hillary Clinton's image in the left, if you had actually read Daou's work you would understand his role is not to coopt the left wing bloggers, but how to improve the projection of Hillary Clinton's message in the right wing media. To do that, he will want to use progressive blogs, not to coopt them, but to improve their ability to defend against your smears, glenn reynolds', and powerline's and mainly to improve the message that will be then smeared in the right wing media.

I am not saying this well, but I actually have a job I need to get back to.

Hey no prob rog, I myself think that the best conversations are those that are allowed to bob and sway to the music. You can learn so much by listening to what other people feel is an important off topic element.

I hope that the recent leaked e-mail from Mr. Zuniga and this (and other) defections from the blogosphere to political campaigns help deflate some of the self-righteousness that runs rampant throughout the blogging community. Bloggers are not saving the world from mainstream media. Mostly, bloggers are people that wish that their diaries had been discovered as teenagers who happenned upon a powerful medium. The medium is so powerful that you are now being folded into the mainstream power structure because there is too much money, fame, and power at stake for you to do otherwise. Also, this is a waste of time for politicians. How many votes to netroots and moveon.org money buy Howard Dean in Iowa? Perhaps I would feel differently if people could vote via the internet. Heh, heh, I wrote troots.

Bruce Hayden said..."I would think that the perfect blog advisor for someone like Hillary would be someone like Ann - a Democrat who can, and routinely does, reach out to the middle and even, horror upon horror, to those of us on the right. It is those in the middle that will have to be woed to win the election, not those on the ranting fringes."

I think what Hillary is looking for is someone to keep Kos from hurting her too much. That's what the current alarm is about and what Daou seems suited to do. As for whether I would do well as someone's Blog Advisor -- clearly not. For one thing, I have a job. (One that Jacques is obviously hilariously jealous of. With good reason! It's ever so much better than his.) I could see taking a leave or even taking early retirement to do something else, but it would have to be awfully good. It's hard to imagine. But more importantly, I wouldn't subvert my blogging energy for someone else's interests. Once a blog isn't the expression of the blogger's own ideas, it's not a real blog anymore. I can't imagine wanting to receive assignments from anyone else. It would ruin the whole feeling of blogging for me.

AJD "There is a much more accurate word for the kind of Democrat that Ann is. And that is: Republican. No actual Democrat is obsessed with taking jabs at Hillary, Ted Kennedy, and Kos, to mention just a few, the way that Ann is."

AJD, you're just such a partisan that you don't notice when I take shots at Republicans. Scroll down to the most recent political post. The shot is at Frist. Scroll down to find another political post on the front page. Hardly anything. Some obsession!

I've been fairly positive toward Hillary, Gore, and Feingold lately. You'll have to look hard to find a recent mention of Senator Kennedy. As for Kos, you're not reading carefully if you think I've been anti-Kos lately.

The most recent political post is this one, which bashes Hillary Clinton. Your post shooting at Frist doesn't even include his name in the post or in any of your remarks in the comments. A pretty soggy shot.

I've been fairly positive toward Hillary, Gore, and Feingold lately. You'll have to look hard to find a recent mention of Senator Kennedy. As for Kos, you're not reading carefully if you think I've been anti-Kos lately.

How can you even pretend to say that when you provide your disdain for Hillary Clinton's smart hiring of a blog advisor to counter right wing spin, when you spin her efforts, and when you claim she would Kos in her eyes as "Kos and his ilk are a threat, storming the gates, and they need someone who can deal with them, talk to them, tame them."

You're favorable to Gore? O RLY? Just what did you think of An Inconvenient Truth which you promised to blog about almost two weeks ago now?

Am I jealous of your opportunity? Of course, who in their right mind would not love a tenured position paying upwards of $160,000 per year where you get to live in a beautiful city, and interact with students?

Of course, I am not jealous of your apparent hatred towards your profession and your disdain of its principal practitioners. You do help me appreciate the fact that I actually like my profession.

I think it is a colossal personal waste and waste of taxpayer money that you would blog about reality shows with everything that only someone has highly trained as you could be analyzing and speaking about. And with tenure yet.

You have a golden opportunity laid at your feet that few people get, and that I will never have. And you are actively pissing it away. And you somehow connect that to the 60s. Very odd indeed.

If I were in charge of coining a replacement, I would choose "webroots." And yes, there are brutes among the webroots.

And what kind of Democrat takes swipes at Hillary, Ted, Kos, etc? A real one. Wasn't it Will Rogers who said that he wasn't a member of an organized political party. He followed that line by pointing out that he was a Democrat.

Yo, JC, if she suggests that Kos is precisely what Kos most loves to puff up his little chest and brag about being, how does that qualify as being "anti-Kos", exactly? Unless you're willing to admit out loud that to describe Kos as he wishes to be described is equivalent to dismissing him as a joke.

N.B.: There are certain risks in the above assessment due to the fact that your relevant paragraph is virtual gibberish, including the fact that I may be misinterpreting what you're attempting to communicate. In fact, I may be mistaken in my assumption that you are attempting to communicate. Anything is possible.

"How can you even pretend to say that"? Actually, surprisingly enough, she wasn't pretending to say it. She just, you know, said it. Saying things is easy. For most of us, anyway.

For somebody who loves his job, by the way, you spend a remarkable amount of your working day squeaking at Ann.

Fritos JC, if she suggests that Kos is precisely what Kos most loves to puff up his little chest and brag about being, how does that qualify as being "anti-Kos", exactly?

Althouse Kos and his ilk are a threat, storming the gates, and they need someone who can deal with them, talk to them, tame them.

I would wager my pseudonymity that Professor Althouse has not read "Storming the Gate" by Markos Moulitsas(*). And I doubt if she knows what it is about, has considered whose gates are being stormed, or understands who the netroots threatens.

Valid point. He strikes me as the type who does less damage that way, assuming he has something resembling a real job. But I don't think he does.

If you drink raw corn liquor and bite the heads off chickens for a living, slacking off on the job is understandable. Nevertheless, a real trouper never lets his audience down. The show must go on, JC. The show must go on!

JC,

Maybe you can explain the vast difference between "storming" and "crashing" there. Sanely, I mean. Good luck with that.

I'm not quite sure what your point is about the book, though. Must I read A Navy of Goliaths before I can accurately describe what Glenn Reynolds says elsewhere? Nope. Are you trying to pretend that Kos doesn't see himself and his Kiddies as a triumphant mob forcing their way into the corridors of power, or that he's a fan of Hillary Clinton? It is to laugh.

--

I'd like to share with the group, by the way, the immense effort of will required not to say, both scurrilously and irrelevantly, that Kos wants to "storm Hillary Clinton's gates". If only I had succeeded...!

The phrase I heard once used on a co-worker was "no, you want him to sleep at his desk. His work output remains the same, but his error ratio goes way down." I'm sure it came from a different source, but I'd never heard it before.

Have you read it? Has the divine Ms. Althouse, tenured so we can protect her research, read the book? She teaches her interpretation of Daou on her understanding of the book and of Kos. What is her understanding of that book?

Has she read it?

What do you call an academic that bloviates without reading or researching? The proper term is unemployable. Thank heavens for tenure and taxpayers.

Having read Kos, Daou, Digby, Yglesias, FDL, Atrios, the LA Times, and the NYTimes I think I know what it is about. But I won't pretend to tell you what is actually in it, or interpret someone's statements based on my "knowing" what is in it.

My understanding is that it's about winning elections and reforming the Democratic Party. If Hillary Clinton can do that, Kos will be all for her. If she wins the primary, Kos will be behind her 100 percent. What is Daou's role? Not to threaten her with Kos or coopt Kos with her, but to help Hillary understand how to use the netroots to fight back to a weak and lazy press.

The folks that should feel threatened by the book? The consultants that help the Democrats lose and get rehired. The party mechanisms that lead to those consultants. Bob Shrum. Joe Klein.

So if I read this correctly, you're ripping on someone for not having read a book you yourself haven't read, but rather form your understanding of based on what others have said about the book. Correct?

If this is the case, can you say with certainty the understanding of another, based on reading what others have said about the book, is invalid? For if their understanding is invalid, what does that make yours?

The divine professor says it is obvious what Daou means, but admits she doesn't read Daou. She tells us all about Kos' book, but it doesn't seem as though she has read that either.

I have read Daou. I have read Kos extensively. I have not read Kos' book. I have read Atrios, and Digby, and FDL, the NYTimes, and the LA Times on Kos' book and their reviews comport with my reading of Kos and not with Ann Althouse's.

I don't know if Professor Althouse's views are accurate or not. I am asking her if she has read the book.

I am not telling you what to believe or not to believe. I am telling you that based on my lack of knowledge and only on my prejudices, I would not be telling readers that what other people say is not what they mean, and that it is obvious that there are hidden meanings or quid pro quos. I think that to do so would be intellectually dishonest, not a fair fight, and the mark of a wanker.

I have read a significant number of his posts at DK. I have read what those who know him say about him and what he is about. I have heard him speak. I have met him. I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country. And I appreciated so very much the frank dialogue.

The difference, which caused me to use the word I deliberately chose, is that if you're storming the gates, you are approaching them and haven't broken through yet. If I wrote that they were crashing the gate, the image would be of them entering. I didn't want to say that.

No matter who she hires, there will be no troots with Hillary Clinton! Or at least, not until the Ascendent in Aries is at 4 degrees and Saturn is in opposition to the Moon and Chiron, a condition most favorable for a sudden betrayal of our stated principles.

Quxxo's take captures a different aspect, also valid, but certainly not more so.

There's more to it than captured in either take. That said, it's not exactly chock-full of surprising or unpredictable insights such that people can't, for the most part--though there are exceptions--pretty much figure out the major theses without reading it. It does bring together a collection of insights representing a particular viewpoint on the state of the Democratic party and progressive politics and what needs to happen going forward.

Quxxo, of course I'm just Puppy Chow, but I've got this going for me: I've almost finished actually reading the book.

As for sending money and time: you put your $ where your priorities are, and, well, I'll bet you could find plenty of time to read this book just by taking a break from commenting here. It's an easy read and a quick one; at any other period of time, I could pretty much have sat down and read it in an evening, two tops, depending on bedtime.

I have heard him speak. I have met him. I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country.

Bill, Paco: Those are examples of using the last syllable as the shortened form, but I'm looking for examples that do that AND take the last letter from the previous syllable. Thus, blog (not log) and shroom (not room) are examples of the phenomenon.

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